


you set your mind on cruise control

by sultrygoblin



Series: i think we've got something here [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Depression, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Older Man/Younger Woman, Snooping, tony just wants her to be okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23552953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sultrygoblin/pseuds/sultrygoblin
Summary: one shot - you and tony are trying, they really are. but some days are just too heavy a reminder that peter isn’t coming home.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Sister, Tony Stark/Original Female Character(s), Tony Stark/Reader
Series: i think we've got something here [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695142
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	you set your mind on cruise control

**Author's Note:**

> i cried while writing this, i cried while editing. so if there are any mistakes sorry.
> 
> i am taking requests

You’d never been an early riser which suited him perfectly, he got more than enough time to himself in the morning; you took the evening and the afternoon was spent trying to spend time together in the wake of everything. Some days were harder than others, this day seemed to be one of them. Even on the bad days, you would trudge downstairs to grab supplies with the most pathetic look on your face and an apology, not that you needed to give one. You’d all lost people but he couldn’t imagine… regardless, 3 pm was pushing it even for you. He had stepped in the room with a plan to yank you out of bed whether you liked it or not. But there was no music or tv, you weren’t scrolling through your phone. You were just laying there, blanket pulled up around everything but your face, staring at the wall.

“Baby,” it’s new, “You gotta get up,” he hates it.

“Go away,” you grumbled, yanking the blanket over your face and shoving yourself deeper into the mattress.

So he does, because what else exactly is he supposed to do? He tries to work, he wastes time on the treadmill, everything he can to not think about that something is very wrong and he can’t fix it. you’re not some piece of tech, something he can just troubleshoot, especially when to do that you’d have to tell him what was wrong. Which is clearly not something you’re in any mood to do. It’s almost midnight now and he can’t take it. He shouldn’t, he knows he shouldn’t.

“We’ll fight about it later,” is the route he chose to take instead.

It’s not hard to break into your phone. There’s an alarm for 5 am, an ungodly hour he was more likely to find you still awake not waking up. You promised him birthday waffles! Just like that, a pit appears in his stomach. He shouldn’t, it’s enough, he has the answer. By the end of it, he realizes you’d planned every second of your brother’s birthday, meticulously. Breakfast, they were going to the Unseen Oceans exhibit at the Natural History Museum, lunch at ‘you know where’, you’d reserved one of his limos for a trip to Coney Island and then back into Queen’s for dinner at Longhorns where Aunt May would have met them no doubt. The kind of big sister a kid like Peter had deserved, the kind that loved him like you’d popped him out yourself. Well, now that he knows, he wonders what exactly he can do about it?

At 2 am he heard the soft sound of fluffy socks shuffling along the floor. your hair is, well, east for a lack of a better description, pajama pants crooked, the shirt jammed up around your ribs, as you shambled your way past him towards the kitchen. you’d gone a lot longer than he thought without eating, another thing they would fight about later. He stepped quietly behind you. Out comes the deli meat that you just sticks you hand in, yanking out a slice and crumpling it in your hand before shoving it in your mouth. Your eyes dead, facing forward but not taking anything in.

“Alright, pity party over,” stepping forward and yanking the bag from your hands, you whined, a pitiful sound that he couldn’t help scoffing at with amusement, “Come on, I got something to show you.

“Tony-”

“You can walk or I can carry you but you’re seeing it,” looking at you with that familiar look of daring him, you give a long exhale that has a slightly longer whine behind it, “You are ridiculous, you know that?” stepping into the main room, “I would go as far as to say absurd.”

There isn’t much to see yet, just a square with a bit of blue to it surrounded by a border of more opaque, darker blue, “Tony, please, we can do this tomorrow, I just want to-”

“I know what you want to do and you did it all day. But he’s got a birthday every year, baby,” you inhale sharply, he wraps an arm around you instinctively, yanking you tight against him, “I snooped. I snooped hard,” he almost wishes you had yelled at him, there’s just no fight left there. Not today, at least.

“Alright, just,” flicking his hand in the air, “Watch.”

Your own voice suddenly fills the air, “Peter! No,” you hand coming into view, “Why are you filming me?”

“It’s my heroes journey, duh!” the camera finally makes it into the light, he can hear your breath hitch, he squeezes you tighter, “And you’re my Alfred.”

“I am not your Alfred,” they’re in the front seat of a rental, “Alfred had better things to do than drive Batman around.”

“I think it might look a little suspicious if I web slung my way to this field trip,” reached across the console, fighting for grip of the camera, “Stop it! Stop it! You’ll break it!”

There was a shake and a rumble, “Peter, what was that?”

You didn’t need reminding, you knew what happened. He won’t let you move, even as you try, “What’re you doing? Just let me-”

“Hold on,” pressing his lips to your temple, “Friday if you would be so kind.”

It’s red, it’s rubble, Tony’s told you about it, that place far from you and their Aunt when it all happened.

“I hope this works,” he’s anxious, squeamish, it’s the same look he always had on his face when you took the blame for him, “And that you get this, somehow,” he collapses on the dirt, running his hand over his face, “Something not good is coming, I don’t- There’s just a couple things I want to say, in case- I just don’t tell you this kinda stuff a lot and I should. I should say it more,” tears are forming in your eyes, they’re going to be big, fat tears that make you ugly cry and both of them know it, “The only reason I’m here, the only reason I can do any of this is because you told me I could,” he sighs, pushing his hand through his hair, “You always said I could be anything- no, you didn’t just say it, you showed me I could be anything and I just- I never said thank you for it. I never said thank you enough, I never hung out with you enough, I never said I love you enough. Oh my god, I am a brat!” it’s a laugh that’s a little too mucus-filled and comes with a small ragged sob at the end, but it’s a laugh.

Another arm wraps around, pulling you close, your cheek pressed to your shoulder, arms crunched against your chest.

“I love you. I mean, you’re my best friend. You know that, right? Even when I was just the worst, you were the best. Just the best. You yelled at Tony Stark for me. Do you get that? You yelled at Iron Man! So freaking cool,” there’s scuffling in the background, words you can’t make out passed back and forth, “I gotta go, old lady. I just needed you to know that I love you, I couldn’t have done any of this without you, and Mr. Stark is not as cool as you think he is.”

It flickered out, and they were right. Big, fat ugly tears streamed down your face, the kind that came with not that just kept happening no matter how many times you tried to suck it back up, “He’s right, you know about all of it?” running his hand through your hair, lips pressed to the crown of your head, “Except I am much cooler than you think I am.”

“How,” you try again with it comes out as little more than a shredded breath, “How’d you get that?”

“Doesn’t matter,” there had been a reason he’d picked up and stowed away that mangled mess of a cell phone. For you, because this was going to happen one day and it wouldn’t be enough for him to fix it, “And I know you’re going to say that it does, but it really doesn’t. Just like it doesn’t matter that your last words to Peter were ‘Don’t scrape the paint, I didn’t pay extra for insurance’,” holding you sticky cheek in his hand angling your head so you were forced to look at him with raw eyes, “He knew how much you loved him and when he should’ve been worrying about the Universe or -” pressing a kiss to you forehead, “He’d want you to be okay,” each swelling eye, “I want you to be okay,” the tip of your nose. you sniffled, nodding, “I love you,” the last kiss pressed firmly to your lips, “Let’s go to sleep, alright?”


End file.
